Moffett Federal Airfield

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moffett Federal Airfield

IATA: NUQ - ICAO: KNUQ
Summary
Airport type		Private
Operator		NASA Ames Research Center
Elevation AMSL		32 ft (9.8 m)
Coordinates		37°24′54.6″N, 122°02′54″W
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
14L/32R	9,202	2,805	Concrete
14R/32L	8,127	2,477	Asphalt

Moffett Federal Airfield (IATA: NUQ, ICAO: KNUQ), also known as Moffett Field, is a private airport located 3 miles (5 km) north of Mountain View, in Santa Clara County, California, USA. The airport is near the south end of San Francisco Bay, north of San Jose. This former United States Navy base is now owned and operated by the NASA Ames Research Center.

By far the most famous and visible sites are Hangars #1, #2, and #3, which dwarf the surrounding buildings. Hangar One is truly one of the most unique hangars in the world. Hangars #2 and #3 are significant more for their size than their unique styling or design. Hangar One is a Naval Historical Monument and the entire airfield is a United States Registered Historic District.

The Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, a National Historic Landmark, is located at the AMES Research Center in Moffett Field.

1 History
2 Hangar One
3 Facilities
4 Assigned units
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

In 1931, Mountain View and Sunnyvale acquired a 1,000 acre (4 km²) parcel of land bordering San Francisco Bay, then "sold" the parcel for $1 to the US government as a home base for the Navy airship USS Macon.

The location proved to be ideal for an airport. Through a quirk of geography, the area is often clear while the rest of the San Francisco Bay is covered in fog. This is due to a gap in the Coast Range to the west which funnels the prevailing winds into the area, dispersing the fog.

The base, originally named Airbase Sunnyvale CAL, was accepted by the U.S. Navy on February 12, 1931 and dedicated NAS Sunnyvale on April 12, 1933. After the death of Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, who is credited with the creation of the airfield,^[1] in the loss of the USS Akron on April 4, 1933, the Naval Air Station was renamed NAS Moffett Field on September 1, 1933.

After the ditching of the Macon on February 12, 1935, and until 1941, Moffett Field was under the control of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Aerial View of Moffett Field and NASA Ames Research Center.

From the end of World War II until its close, NAS Moffett Field saw several generations of anti-submarine warfare aircraft, including the Lockheed P2V Neptune and P-3 Orion. Until the demise of the USSR and for some time thereafter, daily anti-submarine sorties flew out from Moffett Field to patrol along the Pacific coastline.

In 1960, the nearby Air Force Satellite Test Center was created adjacent to Moffett. It is operational today as Onizuka Air Force Station.

On July 1, 1994, Moffett Field was closed as a military base and turned over to NASA Ames Research Center. NASA Ames now operates the facility as Moffett Federal Airfield. Since being decommissioned as an active military installation, part of Moffett has been made accessible to the public, including a cordoned portion of the interior of the massive Hangar One. There were once balloon rides given on show days, and incidents of weather inside.

Moffett Airfield has seen very light air traffic, especially since the turn of the millennium. This might be due to its relative proximity to Travis Air Force Base. Moffett is regularly used to land Air Force One during presidential visits to the Bay Area.

[edit] Hangar One

View of Hangar One, the huge dirigible hangar, with doors open at both ends.

Moffett Field's "Hangar One" (built during the Depression era for the USS Macon) and the row of World War II blimp hangars are still some of the largest unsupported structures in the country. The hangar is constructed on a network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests firmly upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers eight acres (3.24 ha) and can accommodate 10 football fields. The hangar measures 1,133 feet (343 m) long and 308 feet (93 m) wide. Its walls curve upward and inward, to form an elongated dome 198 feet (60 m) high. The "orange peel" doors weighing 500 tons (204.75 tonnes) each. The doors are operated by an electrical control panel, each powered by a 150 horsepower motor.

The hangar's interior is so large that fog sometimes forms near the ceiling.^[1] A person unaccustomed to its vastness is susceptible to optical disorientation. Looking across its deck, planes and tractors look like toys. Along its length maintenance shops, inspection laboratories and offices help keep the hangar busy. Looking up, a network of catwalks for access to all parts of the structure can be seen. Two elevators meet near the top, allowing maintenance personnel to get to the top quickly and easily.

Narrow gauge tracks run through the length of the hangar. During the lighter-than-air period of dirigibles and non-rigid aircraft, the rails extended across the apron and into the fields at each end of the hangar. This tramway facilitated the transportation of an airship on the mooring mast to the hangar interior or to the flight position. During the brief period that the Macon was based at Moffett, Hangar One not only accommodated the giant airship but several smaller non-rigid lighter-than-air craft simultaneously.

Plans to convert it to a space and science center have been put on hold with the discovery in 2003 that the paint on the outside is leaching toxic chemicals. There are also concerns about substantial amounts of asbestos in the structure. The hangar has been closed ever since and is now threatened with demolition, although various concerned groups are fighting to save it. It is an aerodynamic building. The clam-shell doors were designed to reduce turbulence when the Macon moved in and out on windy days.

Hangar One today is the center of a spirited debate over its own future. The hangar is leaking toxic chemicals into the groundwater of the San Francisco bay. The cause of the chemicals stem from the lead paint and toxic metals used in the creation of the hangar. The debate is occurring over whether to spend an approximate cost of $10 million^{[citation needed]} to tear down the hangar and reuse the land, or approximately $20 million^{[citation needed]} to clean the toxic waste from the site and refurbish the hangar for future preservation.

The US Navy and NASA, the current co-proprietors of the hangar, would prefer to tear down the hangar as they do not want to pay the costs associated with maintaining it. However, each agency is battling each other over who should foot the cost of destruction.

Some historic and nonprofit groups would like the hangar preserved as a historic landmark, however, as the hangar is a major bay area landmark and historic site. Any person in the South Bay area under the age of 70 has never lived without the massive structure dominating the background of Moffett Field, and many people have become attached to it.

In 2006, an offer to clean the hangar and coat its outsides with solar panels to recoup the costs of cleaning was floated by a private company, but the plan was never seen to fruition.

An episode of the Discovery Channel TV show "Mythbusters" utilized one of the smaller hangars to disprove the myth that it is not possible to fold a sheet of paper in half more than seven times. The sheet of paper covered nearly the full width of the hangar. Other episodes of Mythbusters have utilized the hangar to test myths such as "Overinflating a football allows longer kick distances", and "Airworthy aircraft can be constructed of concrete"